Re: [OPE] Venezuela again

Dear Jerry:   This is the dichotomic logic that leads you to support the dictatorship in Cuba, and that will lead you to support any other Stalinist regime that comes in the future.   You, some Marxists, have not even properly developed the normative foundations of this institutional order. I suspect that the reason is that you suspect that essentially these dictatorships are deeply anti-socialists.   Here I am, ready to willingly display the theoretical resources that during centuries liberal theorists have built, debating with someone who doesn’t want to even try to deepen into the normative contradictions of the shapeless ideas of the founder fathers of Marxism.   I hope you understand why I can not continue with this partisan discussion. If I want to involve in this kind of discussions I’ll go to the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, not to OPE.   Sincerely yours,A. Agafonow ________________________________ De: GERALD LEVY <gerald_a_levy@msn.com> Para: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu> Enviado: miércoles, 28 de enero, 2009 16:11:29 Asunto: RE: [OPE] Venezuela again > A serious analysis has to start explaining the socioeconomic foundations of the evolution of the two-party > system in a regime that doesn’t have formal entry barriers in the electoral competition.   Alejandro A:   No, a serious analysis has to begin with a historical analysis, including class analysis.  One has to scituate the current struggle in Venezuela, not in abstract statements about democracy and whether term limits are desirable, but in the actual struggles and material conditions of workers and the poor. One, additionally, has to grasp the nature of the opposition and whether they are as pro-democratic as they claim, not by their propaganda but by their actions.  Frankly, the whole discussion by Chavez's opponents - nationally and internationally - about whether there should be term limits is a ruse: they couldn't care less about an abstract principle, they just want to see Chavez gone by any means. What is 'hilarious'  sometimes are the inconsistencies and hypocrisy of these opponents:  e.g. an editorial of _The New York Times_  supported term limits in Venezuela and said that Chavez was an undemocratic tyrant for opposing them. One would think then from that editorial that _The New York Times_ was committed to the principle of term limits, but that is not all the case. In New York, the people of the City voted twice for term limits. Yet, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked that term limits be done away with (not through popular vote, but through a vote of the City Council), the _NYT_ supported Bloomberg's demand to get rid of term limits on the Mayor even though polls showed that the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers were opposed to this.  Of course there are many other examples as well, most notably the fact that many of the same forces which conspired against democracy by supporting the 2002 coup d'etat talk about how "undemocratic" Chavez allegedly is.    In solidarity, Jerry

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Received on Wed Jan 28 13:13:46 2009